A Roguish Ravenclaw

"Hey, Tonks!" shouted a voice outside the second-year dormitory.

"What?" asked Nymphadora absentmindedly. She was attempting to charm her Dungbombs so that they would pause ten seconds after being activated before releasing their flatulent odor. This way, she could easily throw a few into Filch's office without being caught in the vicinity as they went off.

"Flitwick's in the common room. He wants to have a word with you," informed Gwenog Jones, the captain of the Ravenclaw team, who was probably retiring to the seventh year dormitory after an exhausting hour of Quidditch practice.

"Oh, okay," Nymphadora muttered. She tapped a Dungbomb with her wand. Nothing happened. She looked back in her book, making sure that she was using the right spell.

"Prodico temporis!" she shouted, tapping the small stinkbomb in her hand. Still, nothing happened. Angrily, she whipped her wand at the bomb. She suddenly heard a soft hiss coming from the sides of the round ball, and resisted the urge to choke. She quickly sprinted out of her dormitory as the Dungbomb exploded, deciding to explain the stench to her roommates later. Then, of course, she tripped over a stack of large Arithmancy textbooks near the bottom of the stairs and tumbled into the Ravenclaw common room.

"Ow!" she gasped, seeing only splotches of blue and bronze with her bleary eyesight.

"Miss Tonks, are you all right?" Professor Flitwick hurried over to her.

"Sorry... sorry...," apologized Nymphadora to all of students she had knocked into during her grand entrance into the common room.

"Miss Tonks, I wish to talk to you. Would you care to accompany me to my office?"

"Um, sure!" said Nymphadora innocently. They exited the tower and walked to the Charms corridor. Flitwick unlocked the door to his office with a wand and they both went in.

"Sit down please," Flitwick motioned to the chair opposite the desk. He then disappeared behind his desk as he sat on his own chair. Tapping the side of the chair, he waited as the legs of the chair lengthened, allowing him to see eye-level with Nymphadora.

"Now, Miss Tonks, do you realize why you're here?"

Nymphadora retained her innocent attitude. "Well, sir, you told me you wanted to talk to me...."

"Well, yes," Flitwick began apologetically, "but do you know why I wanted to talk to you in the first place?"

"Are my grades falling?"

"Well, no," said Flitwick, wishing that were the case. He very much preferred tutoring to reprimanding. "Many teachers have come to me to complain about your behavior."

"Did Snape yell a lot?" Nymphadora sat up at the edge of the seat and looked at Professor Flitwick eagerly, wanting to know the effects of her marvelous mischief.

Flitwick sighed and leaned back on his chair, observing his student. "Yes, Miss Tonks, he did. He caused me a great deal of embarrassment at the staff meeting, if you must know. I have never before had such a boisterous student before now, Nymphadora, and I have been teaching since before your parents' time. Your own mother and father were prefects in their day! I simply don't understand why you must be so...exuberant. I simply ask that you behave yourself and abandon you reckless behav-" BOOOM!

The castle shook slightly, but this was enough to topple Professor Flitwick off his spindly chair. Nymphadora rushed to dust him off and help him back into his seat, but then the large BOOOM noise occurred again and she gasped.

"I forgot about Mortimer!" she exclaimed and ran out of the professor's office before he could say "Nymphadora". Having a nagging suspicion that she had something to do with the two rumbles earlier, the petite professor tried to follow her, desperately wishing that he had longer legs (with a tall body to match). He hightailed after her as she burst out of the castle and into the grounds as she headed in the direction of the Herbology greenhouses.

Sure enough, outside of Greenhouse One, a mass of terrified students, some of them even seventh years, were panicking, many of them nursing first and second-degree burns. Inside, Professor Flitwick could hear something, very large and not Professor Sprout-like, rattling and causing explosions. Nymphadora opened the door and ran inside.

At this point, the students outside, who had probably been happily enjoying a homework-free weekend outside a few moments before, decided to scamper into the castle for refuge, leaving Professor Flitwick outside by himself to deal with Nymphadora and whatever monster she had granted the name Mortimer to. Saying that he was apprehensive would have been like saying that he was slightly vertically challenged.

Trembling from head to tiny foot, the poor professor opened the door. There he saw Nymphadora Tonks, lying on top of a fire-crab's shell, apparently trying to wrestle it. The fire-crab looked extremely displeased as it shot large fireballs while trying to spin Nymphadora off. The result was that several potted dittany plant were wholly and partially destroyed and the force of the fireballs caused the entire greenhouse to quake. Gripping the fir-crab's shell as she flailed around the greenhouse, Nymphadora looked determined to stop the fire-crab as she hung onto its jeweled shell. Sadly, this only incensed it further as it tried to shake her off its back. Had Filius Flitwick been an American, he would have recalled that Tonks' stunt resembled something that could have observed at a rodeo. But the professor was too busy being his Scottish self and panicking internally to reflect on that fact. He couldn't think of any spells that would affect the fire-crab. Taking a deep breath, the professor lunged forward to try to stop the raging creature....

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Professor Flitwick woke up in the hospital wing a few hours later. Many of his fellow educators surrounded him; some of them, like Professor McGonagall and Madam Hooch, tried to hide their grins while others, like Professor Sprout and Professor Snape, were looking rather angry. Professor Sprout seemed to have noticed the damage to Greenhouse One. Snape, on the other hand, still sported the unpleasant jelly-like material upon his hair. Professor Dumbledore was chortling softly as he surveyed Professor Flitwick.

"W-What happened?" groaned Professor Flitwick.

"Filius, you had charged head-on towards an angry fire-crab."

"I know that... what happened afterwards?"

"Well, it'd be complicated to explain the physics of it, but the weight of both you and Miss Tonks seemed to have slowed down said fire-crab and it crashed into a Flutterby Bush," informed Professor Dumbledore.

Professor Sprout sniffed deeply as he said this. However, Professor Dumbledore took no notice.

"And Miss Tonks?" asked Professor Flitwick anxiously.

"Oh, she'll do fine. Although I think she's realized exactly why the Hogwarts administration prefers to permit only cats, toads, and owls as pets for students. One should hope that he leans from this experience."

In spite of himself, Professor Flitwick snorted. That was very unlikely.